Wiki News Live
Today:
House ethics committee deadlocked on whether to release Matt Gaetz report
NEWS | 21 November 2024
The House ethics committee was deadlocked on releasing a report examining allegations of sexual misconduct against Matt Gaetz, the former Republican representative and Donald Trump’s choice to lead the US justice department, after the panel met behind closed doors on Wednesday. Susan Wild, the top Democratic representative on the ethics committee, told reporters that the panel did hold a vote on the matter, but there was “no consensus”. As the ethics committee is evenly split between the two parties, it would take only one Republican siding with every Democrat on the panel to have the report released. But prominent Republicans, including the House speaker, Mike Johnson, have cautioned against releasing the report on Gaetz, who resigned his seat immediately after Trump announced his nomination as attorney general. Democratic members of the Senate judiciary committee, which will hold Gaetz’s confirmation hearings, have also requested the FBI’s file on the attorney general nominee.

Top Stories:
Joe Biden turns 82 as Democrats begin search for younger party leaders
NEWS | 21 November 2024
Joe Biden marked his 82nd birthday on Wednesday as Democrats began searching for a younger generation of party leaders following Kamala Harris’s morale-sapping defeat in this month’s presidential election. Pelosi was instrumental in pressing Biden to stand aside as the Democrats’ presidential nominee in July amid concerns about his advanced age and mental acuity following a disastrous debate performance against Trump the previous month. However, the spotlight is being shone on younger potential contenders amid widespread calls for “a new generation of leadership”. When did you show up into this?” the Democratic insider told Politico about the need for younger leaders. More pointedly, Biden ignored invitations to talk from reporters travelling with him about his message to international leaders on the incoming administration.

World:
Trans congresswoman Sarah McBride responds to Capitol Hill bathroom ban
NEWS | 21 November 2024
Sarah McBride, the incoming congresswoman and first openly transgender person elected to the US House of Representatives, on Wednesday shared a statement on social media in response to the House banning trans people from using single-sex bathrooms on Capitol Hill that match their gender identity. Earlier in the day, the House speaker, Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson, issued a statement “regarding facilities throughout the US Capitol complex”. Will everyone who works at the Capitol have to carry around their birth certificate or undergo a genetic test? This policy isn’t going to protect anyone – but it is going to open the door to rampant abuse, harassment, and discrimination in the Capitol. The organization said trans women “aren’t a threat” and that transgender people are disproportionately vulnerable to violence themselves.

Current Events:
Maurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped ‘banana’ artwork fetches US$5.2m at New York auction
NEWS | 21 November 2024
Maurizio Cattelan’s viral artwork involving a banana duct-taped to a wall has sold at auction for US$5.2m, besting its estimates of between US$1m and US$1.5m. One of three editions for the 2019 work, titled Comedian, made its auction debut on Wednesday evening at Sotheby’s New York, as part of its contemporary art auction. The new owner of the world’s most expensive banana is not yet known, though the winning bid was placed through Sotheby’s China office. It subsequently went viral when New York performance artist David Datuna removed and ate the banana, which was then replaced. 1:08 'Hungry' performance artist eats $120,000 banana art installation – videoMore to come

News Flash:
Billionaire Gautam Adani charged in US over alleged $250m bribery plot
NEWS | 21 November 2024
Gautam Adani, one of the world’s richest men, has been indicted in New York over an alleged multi-billion-dollar scheme to pay $250m in bribes and conceal the scheme from US investors. Prosecutors charged the chair of Indian conglomerate Adani Group and two other executives of a renewable energy company with securities fraud and conspiring to commit securities and wire fraud. Separately, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US’s top markets watchdog, charged Adani, 62, and two other executives over conduct it said had arisen out of a “massive bribery scheme”. Prosecutors alleged that, on several occasions, Adani personally met with an Indian government official to advance the bribery scheme. One of the defendants, Sagar R Adani, tracked “specific details of the bribes offered and promised to government officials” on his phone, according to prosecutors.

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SPONSORED | 21 November 2024
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Latest:
Former billionaire investor Sung Kook ‘Bill’ Hwang sentenced to 18 years
NEWS | 21 November 2024
The former billionaire investor Sung Kook “Bill” Hwang was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Wednesday over the collapse of Archegos Capital Management, which cost Wall Street banks more than $10bn. Hwang was sentenced by US district judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan, where a jury convicted Hwang in July on 10 criminal charges including wire fraud, securities fraud and market manipulation. Archegos’s March 2021 implosion took less than a week, stunning Wall Street and Hwang’s lenders. Hwang, 60, set up Archegos in New York as a family office in 2013, the year after his former hedge fund, Tiger Asia Management, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in an insider-trading case. More than $100bn of market value in Hwang’s stocks was wiped out.

Breaking:
Thai woman sentenced to death for cyanide poisoning in first of 14 murder trials
NEWS | 21 November 2024
A Thai woman alleged to be among the worst serial killers in the kingdom’s history has been convicted and sentenced to death for poisoning a friend with cyanide, in the first of 14 murder trials. A court in Bangkok convicted her on Wednesday of fatally poisoning her friend Siriporn Khanwong. Police were then able to link Sararat to previously unsolved cyanide poisonings going back as far as 2015, officers said. Sararat faces 13 more separate murder trials and has been charged with about 80 offences in total. Earlier this year, six foreigners were found dead in a luxury Bangkok hotel after a cyanide poisoning believed to be connected to debts worth millions of baht.

Trending:
First arrest as New Zealand ban on displaying gang patches comes into force
NEWS | 21 November 2024
At midnight, it became illegal for gang members to display signs, symbols or patches – large insignia sewn on to jackets, for example – anywhere in public. Black Power gang life member and community advocate, Denis O’Reilly, told RNZ there will be a “spectrum of response” from gang members to the law changes, including resistance. “The main advice gang leaders are providing their members is that of Minister Goldsmith’s: don’t get caught,” he said. We’ve said that forever, from day one.”Others said the ban was a human rights issue: “it’s taking away our freedom. The society said the law could result in a person being held criminally liable for being proximate to someone in possession of gang insignia, while the definition of gang insignia could – when taken literally – include “printed reproductions of gang insignia, making it a criminal offence to possess a newspaper with a gang symbol in it, or certain books”.

This Just In:
Standoff as Canada Yukon town council refuses to swear oath to King Charles
NEWS | 21 November 2024
The council of a town in Canada’s Yukon territory has been locked for weeks in bureaucratic standstill after its members refused to swear a mandatory oath of allegiance to King Charles, citing the crown’s tarnished relations with Indigenous peoples in the region. “It’s a bit of a sticky situation.”Under Yukon’s Municipal Act, elected officials are required to take the oath of allegiance and an oath of office. Councillors took the oath of office on 5 November, but have refused to swear or affirm they “will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles III” and his “heirs and successors according to law”. “This is being done with no disrespect to His Majesty King Charles. In 2022, Quebec passed legislation ending elected officials’ required oath to King Charles.

Today:
The Simpsons: Milhouse voice actor Pamela Hayden retires from show after 35 years
NEWS | 21 November 2024
Pamela Hayden, the actor behind beloved Simpsons character Milhouse, has announced her retirement from the show after 35 years and almost 700 episodes. “The time has come for me to hang up my microphone,” Hayden, 70, said in a statement on Wednesday. But as she said in a video tribute shared by the show, Milhouse was her “main guy”. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy“Pamela gave us tons of laughs with Milhouse, the hapless kid with the biggest nose in Springfield. She made Milhouse hilarious and real, and we will miss her,” said Simpsons creator Matt Groening.

Top Stories:
Arizona immigrants fear return to mass arrests as state passes ‘secure our border’ act
NEWS | 21 November 2024
The news that Arizona voters on 5 November had approved the so-called “secure our border” initiative hit Reyna Montoya like a gut punch. “It caused so much emotional trauma,” said Montoya, who herself was undocumented when the law was enacted. This summer, the state supreme court rejected a lawsuit filed by immigrant rights groups to remove Proposition 314 from the ballot on constitutional grounds. Human rights and immigration groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have vowed to continue fighting Proposition 314 and prevent its full implementation. Our state has been down this road before with costly litigation,” John Mitchell, an immigrants’ rights attorney for the ACLU of Arizona, said in a statement.

World:
‘Capitalism incarnate’: inside the secret world of McKinsey, the firm hooked on fossil fuels
NEWS | 21 November 2024
It’s just one example of the firm claiming to help the world move to cleaner energy while quietly advising its clients on boosting fossil fuel production or sales. Photograph: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty ImagesThe firm has increasingly pushed the importance of its climate work in public, advising companies and governments around the world on the transition. Rather than asking the firm to drop its fossil fuel clients, the signatories called for ways of holding the firm publicly accountable for its promises on decarbonisation. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images“Like it or not, there is no way to deliver emissions reductions without working with these industries to rapidly transition,” Sternfels wrote in 2021 after criticism of McKinsey’s fossil fuel work. McKinsey declined to answer questions about what fossil fuel projects it would no longer take on.

Current Events:
Jimmy Lai trial: key points from media mogul’s testimony on first day
NEWS | 21 November 2024
Jimmy Lai, the detained pro-democracy activist and media mogul who is the target of Hong Kong’s most high-profile national security case, took the stand in court on Wednesday. Here are the key points from his testimony:Lai wanted to stop the national security lawLai had been very opposed to the national security law that is now being used against him. Lai had urged the Taiwanese edition of Apple Daily to not “go against” the US president “because the time had become critical that we wanted President Trump to stop the NSL”. Lai said: “I would not dare to ask the vice-president to do anything, I just relayed to him what happened in Hong Kong when he asked me. He has not called for Hong’s Kong independenceApple Daily represented “Hong Kong values” of the rule of law, democracy, and political and social freedoms, Lai said.

News Flash:
Opt out: how to stop tech companies spying on your phone as Trump promises mass deportations
NEWS | 21 November 2024
Turn off your location settingsLaw enforcement is actively asking tech companies for location information or buying it. There’s no surefire way to stop every tech company from tracking your location information. But there are ways to minimize how many companies have your location information and how often they track it. Do a 15-minute review of your location settings. On Android, go to your settings, then “security and privacy”, then “privacy controls”, then “permission manager” and select location.